


pixilated

by deuteroscopies



Series: the prophet and the king [37]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Family Secrets, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24747856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuteroscopies/pseuds/deuteroscopies
Summary: An eerie black mold has begun growing through Soapberry Springs, and it's resulted in ghosts from every citizen's past reappearing in their lives. Which means a joyful reunion for Ephram -- and one rather more fraught for Freddie.
Relationships: Freddie Watts/Ephram Pettaline
Series: the prophet and the king [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551673
Kudos: 1





	pixilated

**Author's Note:**

> >   
> Freddie Watts = Tom Hardy FC, Ephram Pettaline = Boyd Holbrook FC. These stories are set in the supernatural town of Soapberry Springs, in the Pacific Northwest. Freddie is a fairy con man from London, with cobalt-coloured dragonfly wings and silver fairy dust, who has a Japanese Chin familiar named Oliver; Ephram is a witch from impoverished East Kentucky who shares his body with a demon called Anaxis and has green magic of his own.
>> 
>> [the prophet and the king 'verse tumblr](http://theprophetandtheking.tumblr.com/)  
> 

TXT: Freddie you’ll never believe 

TXT: Actually no you must have got a ghost too right? Tell me who yours is I’m coming home

TXT: And I’m bringing Edith

> [TXT] Oh, if this is about needing a bloody Ghostbuster, I’ll believe it, love.
> 
> [TXT] Mine’s inconsequential and tiresome - but you’ll see that soon enough.
> 
> [TXT] EDITH?! My god, sweetheart, I take back everything I said about Ghostbusters. That’s wonderful. <3
> 
> [TXT] Drive slowly though, yeah? I need to smarten myself up a bit if I’m meeting your grandmother. xoxo

Freddie felt a swell of nervous excitement building in the pit of his stomach, biting his lower lip for a moment - he’d found himself reverting to schoolboy mannerisms without meaning to in the presence of his ghost, and now the notion that he was about to meet Ephram’s beloved great-grandmother only intensified that sense of adolescent diffidence - before turning back to where Ollie, and the spectre haunting the two of them, were sat on the sofa glaring at one another.

Ollie had always thought badly of the teachers who’d shown a special ‘interest’ in Freddie - but Trevor Thorne had always been the one he’d been most vehemently opposed to. And the man’s death had done nothing to change that.

“So it’s… a _familiar_ , did you say, Watts? And _that’s_ why it’s looking at me the way that it is?” the ghost asked, looking at Ollie with a faintly unsettled expression - which was a bit rich, Freddie thought, considering that the man himself was currently flickering, looking as Freddie remembered him one moment; blond and fortyish, haughty and rather handsome in a tweedy intellectual sort of way; and then appearing the way he must have looked at the end of his life the next; aged and wrinkled, with thin grey hair and rounded shoulders, though the air of haughtiness remained. That, apparently, had been untouched by time.

So that was odd _enough_ , really; the flickering - but the faint transparency, and the fact that Thorne was actually hovering a good three inches off the couch, were doing their fair share too. Ollie’s shrewd little gaze and his obvious self-possession seemed positively mundane by comparison.

The little Chin bristled at the word ‘it’ though, his round eyes narrowing as much as they could, quite happy to give Thorne a demonstration of his ire if he required it, so Freddie walked over and scooped Oliver up before they could find out for certain if incorporeal spirits were capable of feeling pain.

“Yes Sir,” Freddie said tightly; still, after all these years, at a loss to call Thorne anything else, and now thoroughly distracted by Ephram and Edith’s impending arrival home, “ _He_ is a familiar. _My_ familiar; which I have because _I_ am not human.”

“But you’ll have to excuse me, yeah? Because my husband will be home any minute with some rather important company, and I refuse to meet her in a pair of [shorts](https://66.media.tumblr.com/58f749e4b1869f6e401aa4fe898fe04e/tumblr_putebsvYJ31vr0ahbo1_400.png) this short. Back in a tick, Sir.”

Before Thorne could respond, Freddie had hurried up the stairs with Ollie tucked under his arm, heading for the master bedroom and his expansive walk-in closet. “Fucking hell,” he muttered as they walked, “ _Thorne_? What a bloody waste of a ghost. I mean, it isn’t as though we have ‘unfinished business’ or whatever poltergeists are supposed to have when they won’t bugger off to the Great Beyond. You know as well as I do that Thorne finished his bloody business with me every time he brought me into his office - then sent me off to afternoon tea with it dripping down my leg. So how _I_ managed to be top of his sodding haunting list, I’ll never bloody know…”

And that flickering was just… well, it was disconcerting, wasn’t it?

Opening the closet door, Freddie strode inside - only to let out an undignified sort of yelp when he was confronted with the sight of his dead Maths master perusing his suits and leaving an unpleasant-looking sort of mucus behind, nearly dropping Ollie in the process. “You were always a _lazy_ student, Watts,” Thorne said in a boredly superior voice, “-but you were never stupid. Granted, it was a _cunning_ sort of intelligence you possessed then, but still, _think_ for a moment. Clearly, we can’t be separated. Where you go, _I_ go. So don’t run off again, I don’t care for the sensation.”

“Sorry Sir,” Freddie murmured reflexively, setting Ollie down as he began hunting for slightly more suitable clothes; fighting the urge to roll his eyes, steadfastly ignoring the ghost, and shedding what he was currently wearing at the same time. After all, it was nothing Thorne hadn’t seen before, and Freddie as a general rule didn’t give nudity a second thought, regardless of the company.

“So this ‘husband’,“ the ghost said, with all the self-assurance of a man used to being given the floor, “-how old is he? Because you’re a bit long in the tooth now, of course, but I assume I wasn’t your last older man? Likely your best, maybe even your first…” Thorne preened a bit, clearly believing both to be the case, lost for a moment in his memories of supple young flesh and inexperience - then frowned when his eyes refocused on Freddie’s very changed body, though it was unclear whether it was the now visible wings that were distressing him, or the sight of the thickly-muscled, undeniably _adult_ man where his sylph of a boy had once been. 

“…but certainly not your last,” he concluded, his flickering having paused for the moment, leaving him in his younger days. “You always were gagging for it, weren’t you? I imagine you’ve put that to work for you…” 

Whatever had upset Thorne’s applecart though, Freddie didn’t have time for it. He could hear Ephram’s truck pulling into the drive, and he dressed himself quickly in an [outfit](https://66.media.tumblr.com/df038c15e0378b973018d699af831c31/tumblr_putedzhnWV1vr0ahbo1_400.png) only marginally more modest than the one he’d been wearing, opening the closet door again and ushering Ollie out. “I need to go downstairs now, Sir,” he said, “So I’ll leave it to you, yeah? You can come along now, or be pulled in a minute or two. Either suits me.” 

Thorne gave Freddie a frosty look that might have been more effective had he not been so transparent, and had Freddie been a more well-behaved pupil, but he followed, gliding along behind fairy and familiar as they headed down the stairs; the whole trio arriving in the foyer just in time to hear Ephram gush sweetly about his love for his husband, the words bringing a smile to Freddie’s lips and a glow of happiness and affection to his eyes. (Though his stomach churned nervously at the sight of Edith, wanting her approval more than he could say.)

“Why won’t you tell me about him?” Edith insisted as they came through the front door, and Ephram shook his head for the umpteenth time. 

“I want you to meet him and have a first reaction without all of my millions of opinions gettin’ in the way,” Ephram insisted back. “I love him so much, Granmaw, I love him sooooo much there ain’t no way that–”

The two of them, Edith and Ephram, pulled up short when they realized Freddie and his ghost were in the foyer and could hear this conversation. “Freddie!” Ephram exclaimed, face split with the width and brightness of his grin, and Edith said evenly next to him, “Freddie. This boy is ass over teakettle for you, I hope you know.” She smiled, one side of her mouth quirking. “That’s all I know, so far.”

Freddie nodded, still beaming. “I _do_ know, Mrs. Crabtree,” he said, “And he’s not the only one.”

“Edith, honey, call me Edith, please.” The ghost spared only a glance at her counterpart before dismissing Thorne entirely in favour of Freddie, her eyes’ sharpness having lost none of their keen insight despite being incorporeal. “My goodness. I can see now why my lil great-granbaby gits them big beatin’ hearts in his eyes when he talks bout you, Freddie, you’re a beautiful fellow and no mistake.” 

“Edith then,” Freddie murmured, nodding his head with an almost bashful smile - though he couldn’t hide the swell of pride he felt as she went on, both praising his looks and describing Ephram’s gentle mooning in her next breath. Or… her next _not_ a breath? After all, who bloody knew how ghosts worked? 

His smile having turned up to a wide sunshiny grin, Freddie was so engrossed in the brilliance of being able to meet and talk to Edith. his darling’s icon of childhood love and security, that it wasn’t until Ephram had already begun to introduce himself to Thorne that Freddie thought to explain him.

Ephram was practically bouncing on his toes behind Edith, still beaming and barely able to take his gaze from his husband; he was so enamoured with the idea of his beloved great-grandmother being able to meet Freddie, something that had been completely beyond the realm of possibility only one day ago, that it took a few moments before he even noticed Thorne. The man’s pursed mouth, paired with his air of slight disdain and the peculiar way his age kept chasing itself across his face, threw Ephram off his high spirits slightly; Freddie’d never mentioned any deceased relatives of any significance.

“I – hey there, hello,” Ephram said, taking a step forward but stopping when Ollie bumped against his ankle with the little mrrr that indicated the familiar’s disapproval - intervening to bring Ephram reasonably up to speed. At least, in terms of the broad strokes. So … not a ghost who brought any good memories with him, then. 

Still, Ephram knew Freddie was in good safe hands with Edith close to him, so he stooped to touch the back of Ollie’s hard little head, a moment of thanks and checking-in, before stepping closer to Thorne. Not liking at all the general air of the ghost -- his scornful stare and derisive sneer, the way his eyes kept darting to rake over Freddie. “I’m Ephram. I’m Freddie’s husband. And I got no clue who you are, which tells me you maybe ain’t such a fantastic person. Or he would have mentioned you to me.” He gave Thorne a flat, challenging smile. “Am I right?”

He reached out, taking Freddie’s hand in his own. “You should know right now, feller,” Ephram said, “ain’t no way I’m gonna allow you to make Freddie’s life unpleasant for however long you gonna be here. Not when we got so much to be happy about.”

The more dogged and protective aspects of his darling’s character - his keen observance and watchful gallantry; qualities that contributed to making Ephram both an excellent sheriff and husband - were not inclined to simply let things lie without a bit more detail. And Freddie couldn’t help but find that little assertion of Ephram’s position and intentions just dead fucking sexy.

Still though, his rather insalubrious history with Trevor Thorne wasn’t at all what the fairy wanted to be discussing right now. Not with Edith standing (floating) right there beside them.

“Sweetheart,” Freddie said quietly to his husband, giving Ephram’s large hand a squeeze as it held his, nodding in Thorne’s direction, “-he really isn’t worth bothering about. Honestly, I knew him _eons_ ago. I was _fifteen_ the last time I laid eyes on him; Edith’s being here is _far_ more worthy of our attentions.”

But by then, Thorne was feeling the need to have a say of his own, and he fixed Ephram with an expression bearing a lordly and smug sort of weariness. “Believe me, lad,” he said dryly, “-that silence was entirely mutual. Watts is hardly the sort of acquaintance one mentions in polite company.” He smirked faintly, once again thinking back. “Unless, of course, that company is of a shared appetite.”

“I’m _sure_ this old ghost ain’t worth nothin’,” Ephram said evenly, lifting Freddie’s hand to kiss his knuckles before letting go and angling himself between his husband and the ghostly schoolmaster, pleased to feel Ollie take up a similar stance next to him. Ephram dropped his voice so that the conversation was only between him and Thorne, continuing, “–since none of his lil coterie of like-minded pedophiles is here to cheer him on.” Ephram lifted his chin, eyes narrowed and full of a cold but unmistakable hate; this wasn’t something he could handle in a detached way, full of snappy clapbacks or dismissive annoyance. No, this was a fury that came through in a very rare form of Ephram’s expressions of anger – implacable condemnation, icy and absolute.

The ghost, his appearance still chasing itself from youth to old age across his face, sharpened his gaze a bit as he continued. “And by that same logic, I can assure you that I don’t intend to make his life unpleasant in the slightest. I don’t intend to make his life _anything at all_. I’ve barely thought of the little catamite at all these past 26 years….” 

Thorne smirked again. “And _never_ with my trousers on.”

“So don’t you dare fucking talk to me about _polite company_ and try to insult the _child_ that you abused, and then to boast about what you done,” Ephram said, his lip stiff with disgust. “You had your 26 years to gloat over how clever you was to take advantage of and molest a little boy – more of em than Freddie, I’m sure, a proud fuckin’ pervert like you – so you can keep your goddamn cowardly mouth shut for a few days more about it.”

It wasn’t so much that Ephram wanted to keep Freddie unaware of the conversation between him and Thorne – these opinions Ephram held about the predatory teachers Freddie’d grown up among weren’t a secret between them – but this was a chance he never thought he’d be afforded. To express to one of these bastards, dead or not, how horrendous it was what they’d done. To place the culpability squarely in their court and drive it home that they, not Freddie – _never_ Freddie – were the ones who’d chosen what happened behind those closed doors.

Freddie, however, remained ignorant of this entire exchange, all of his attention taken by Edith as she beckoned him aside from the conversation going on between Freddie's husband and his old schoolmaster. Edith leaned closer to Freddie, inviting intimacy, distrating him. “Honey,” she said, quietly enough that only the fairy could hear. “I don’t know you – a fact I aim to change as much as I can afore this is over – but the Ephram I’m seein’ now? Is the man I always hoped he’d realize he was, deep inside. Thank you for that.”

His fairy attention span effectively caught as Edith murmured her thanks into his ear for helping her great-grandson to achieve the heights he was meant for, Freddie let the words soak in, the emotion behind the statement. Which would have been a towering compliment from _anyone_ Ephram cared for - but from Edith, it all but rendered Freddie speechless as he let it wash over him. 

But the fairy didn’t demur; he knew very well the effect that he and Ephram had had on one another’s lives, their fingerprints lovingly left behind on each other’s hearts and minds - so he just smiled softly, telling her, “You’re very very welcome, Edith - but Ephram’s done exactly the same thing for me.”

Edith, meanwhile, had noticed what Ephram was doing and did her own part to keep Freddie from having to interact with this monstrous spectre of his childhood. “Let me git the lay of you,” she said, and hovered her ghostly hands over Freddie’s face, his shoulders, along his arms, as if she was divining him for his aura. “Sweet but with a lil sour to you – that’s good. Ephram needs a touch of trouble now and again to keep ‘im from gettin’ lazy. Now, Freddie,” Edith fixed him with a searching look, “I know all about my grandbaby’s finer qualities, so it’s yours I’m interested in now. You say he’s brought out the best version of you?”

Smiling broadly and a little wickedly, Edith prodded, “–tell me, then. What are the most admirable qualities of my Ephram’s darlin’ husband? Tell me like you was writin’ an advertisement for one’a them dating matchmakin’ places. Or entering a pageant. Give me as embellished a version as you want.” Because she knew, from how Freddie was looking at her, that even an embellished version was likely to be more pared-down and humble than a fairy like Freddie would normally offer. Edith patted Freddie’s hand, a motion that felt like a slightly-too-cool breeze across his skin but was her only non-verbal recourse to be close to him. 

Freddie, at the same time however, was doing his best to ignore Thorne entirely, and hoping that Ephram would eventually choose to do the same - even if the cold rage he could feel radiating through his husband with every word spoken made Freddie want to kiss him breathless. That there was still a large part of the fairy that believed Thorne’s version of events though, made everything just a bit difficult to unpack - so Freddie was very grateful for Edith’s presence. _And_ her efforts to keep him otherwise occupied.

And he stood still for her when she began to move her hands over him, enjoying the figurative warmth of her attention, and smiling happily at her final assessment - though her follow-up question, when she posed it, caught him a bit off guard.

“ _My_ finer qualities?” he repeated, letting out a small huff of laughter, “God… there aren’t many…” He trailed off, quiet for a moment, then glanced at Ephram, who was still stood, along with Ollie, between Freddie and Thorne, and the fairy smiled a touch more softly. “He has though, yeah. Made me the best version of myself. Ephram’s made me kinder, and more thoughtful; opened me up to a belief in the benefits of forgiveness…” 

Freddie smirked, “Well… _sort of_ , any road.” But he paused at Edith’s gentle prodding that he give her a personal sort of CV, and laughed once more, again sounding almost shy about it.

“Well,” he said, flashing Ephram’s great-grandmother a bit of a cheeky grin, “-I’m very pretty, for starters. I’m affectionate, and doting. I like to think I’m loyal. I’m…” The fairy’s brow furrowed slightly as his answers came a bit slower. “I’m protective,” he said, “Probably fiercely so. I try to be positive, and to look on the bright side of things… to laugh rather than cry, and never to take the people that I love for granted.”

“I…” Freddie huffed out another small chuckle, “Well, I know who I am, I suppose. And who I’m not. And I don’t waste any energy on trying to remake myself to please anyone else.”

“But I’m not afraid to grow either,” he amended after a moment, “I want to get better as we go - with Ephram, and for him - and I’m never happier than when he’s happy too.”

Freddie looked at Edith, the faintest of flushes evident on his cheeks. “And on a good day, I’m a bit clever and creative, too. Witty and resourceful.” 

_“On a good day_ ,” he emphasised, laughing again. “The rest of the time I’m an absolute horror.” Freddie grinned. “But fortunately for me, your grandson actually finds that charming, so I can’t say as I worry much about it.”

In the witch-ghost face-off, meanwhile, Thorne’s eyes narrowed momentarily at Ephram, his feathers clearly ruffled - and then he schooled it away, letting out a robust mocking sort of laugh, his lips twisting into a faint smirk as he regarded the witch in front of him.

 _And_ the little dog who was still bloody glaring at him.

“Young or old,” he said, meeting Ephram’s eyes - though his own were rheumy with age, puffed with bags and wrinkles, one second, then clear, bright, and reasonably youthful the next, “-we’re all just slaves to our appetites, aren’t we? Even you, I’d wager, hm?” His gaze shifted briefly to Freddie, leering and dismissive all at once, then came back to Ephram again, looking at him as though they were both in on the same joke. “After all, I can only assume that Watts - eager pupil that he was; in the bedroom, if not the classroom - has elevated orgasm to an art form since last _I_ had him…” The ghost gave a small snort of laughter, though his eyes were cold. “Paedophile is a bit rich though. Watts was a tart on a mission! Bloody _shameless_ , he was. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do… or allow me to do _to_ him.” 

Thorne shrugged, his expression full of a malignant sort of pleasure. “Ultimately, I just didn’t have the heart - or the will - to resist.”

“Watts was _never_ a little boy,” he said with a faint sneer of certainty and righteousness, “That mouth wanted a cock in it from the day he was born.”

Fixing Ephram with a challenging stare that suited his younger self much better than his older incarnation, he went on. “So I don’t think I’ll be shutting my mouth, no - I’m rather enjoying the simple pleasure of hearing my own voice again.” The ghost smiled the unpleasant smile of a man who has no fear of reprisal and is therefore free to indulge his worst impulses. “But you’re more than welcome to shut it for me, hillbilly - if you’re able.”

Ephram didn’t react much when Thorne insinuated that they shared similar desires when it came to using Freddie to slake their needs – it wasn’t anything he hadn’t recognized in himself before, already worked to come to terms with – but when the salacious old ghost declared that Freddie’d been a whore from the cradle born, Ephram went very, very still. 

_ magic can’t deal with ghosts, ephram, but i’m not magic, am i? i’m a demon! we’re beyond anything else in soapberry! i could make it so that he spends every eternal hour from now on feeling like acid and razor wire are running through him from esophagus to asshole! wouldn’t that be just *marvellous*, ephram? think about it! think about what i – what you and me, what *we* could do to him!  _

Anaxis’ voice, before, had always been loud as an airplane engine, noisome with discordant roaring and the churn of blowflies, amplified off the inside of Ephram’s skull. It wasn’t like that anymore. It was overeager and scurrying, wringing its hands like some servile Dickens stock character; easy to shut down and pack away, and Ephram’s mouth stretched incrementally in a flat, pleased smile. Thorne, unaware of the demon’s presence, must have found that expression unsettling for its seeming to be apropos of nothing, and Ephram used that moment to his advantage.

“You’re an unmourned, craven shitheel,” Ephram told Thorne, “with not even a fraction of the morals or plain simple _worth_ belongin’ to this tart and this hillbilly. So gowon, then. Enjoy your own godforsaken hollow echo, afore you gotta go back to rotting in the dirt, forgotten by everbody.”

Reaching down, Ephram picked Ollie up – the familiar’s sharp little teeth showing under the ripple of his raised, growling lip – and the two of them turned resolutely away from Thorne to join the judiciously-designed recitation of Freddie’s more stardust qualities, listening to it being proofread out loud. Ephram didn’t realize he’d started hugging Ollie tighter to him until the Chin made a huff, tongue licking his muzzle, and Ephram gave a startled, apologetic chuckle. “Sorry, Your Highness,” he murmured, setting Ollie back down so the familiar could give himself a good shake and a sneeze.

Thorne couldn’t help it. That man of Watts’, his smile was so disconcerting when it appeared that the ghost instinctively drifted backward a half-step - only recognising his own ignoble retreat once it was too late to be denied. But when the tall lanky American spoke again, it left Thorne with the same feeling of cold emptiness, of bleak bitter chill, that had permeated the endless black nothingness that he had been cast into when he’d died.

And it was such a visceral feeling - despite his insubstantial status - that any snide retort the former schoolmaster had hoped to deliver died in his throat, leaving him sneering, but silent. 

At least temporarily.

Thorne didn’t even bother returning the fluffy little dog’s glare as it growled at him before Watts’ husband turned his back. Too busy was he trying to repress the irrational shudder that that gnawing reminder of his eternity had wrought.

Edith was watching Freddie as he flitted onward through his list with some mild fits and starts, her brook-no-nonsense face growing more and more contemplative. She told Ephram quietly as he came up next to her, “–I’m holdin’ your hand, duckling, feel me holdin’ your hand–” and looked at Freddie with a fierce, impassioned pride as he rounded off his admirable points with a bit of a poke at himself. 

“You’re holdin’ my hand, Granmaw,” Ephram repeated solemnly, his own gaze backlit like a church window. He couldn’t wait; once Freddie’s list came to its conclusion, Ephram blurted, “I love you. For all of them reasons, Freddie, and tons more besides – the ones you’re still coming to terms with and the ones you don’t see as being lovable. And I always will, ain’t nothin’ gonna change that. C’mere.” He loped forward, throwing his long arms around his husband and wrapping Freddie up tight, like he could cloak his darling fairy from the all-too-present damaging lessons of his past.

“We got so many more good days ahead of us, don’t we,” Ephram murmured into Freddie’s rabbit-soft hair, breathing in the clean crisp scent of him. “The rest of our lives.”

“Let the boy breathe, Ephram,” Edith scolded, amused, then asked Freddie, “he always this grabby with you? Ever since he was a lil boy he’d be clutchin’ on you like he’d fall over if he let go. Used’ta clamp on one’a my legs like them lil toys, you know the ones, like lil panda bears and koala bears? And they’d hang onto things? That’s right. Jes like those.”

Ephram’s having joined Edith as part of the audience for Freddie’s little recitation though, made the faint flush high on the fairy’s cheeks deepen slightly. But when his darling proclaimed his love for him only seconds after he’d wrapped up his list, scooping him into his arms and holding him there, cuddling him close, Freddie returned the embrace with a beaming smile; leaning into the comfortable warmth and safety of Ephram’s chest, his arms snaking around his husband’s middle to rub his back. The action making Freddie forget for a moment the ugly spectre of his past currently sitting, hovering slightly above a chair, behind them, Ollie keeping an obviously narrowed eye on him.

“We do, yeah,” he agreed, his smile softening, the warm little gusts of Ephram’s breath blowing his hair gently as he tightened his grip, “Every single day I wake up beside you.”

But when Edith interjected a moment later, telling her grandson to let Freddie breathe, comparing him to a clinging toy, the fairy couldn’t help but laugh. “I had one of those once,” he said, still clinging to Ephram himself, “I used to glamour it into a sloth before sloths were _de rigueur_.”

He grinned at Edith, glancing briefly up at Ephram. “But he is always this grabby with me, yes. Which I love - because when he isn’t grabbing me, I’m busy grabbing him.” Freddie’s eyes sparkled. “We’ve all sorts of shared interests, Ephram and I.”

Edith gave a low, husky laugh, one where you could almost catch the scent of the corn liquor and butterscotch candies that she’d favoured in life. “My man Emory was like that with me, too,” she said. “Laws, but we couldn’t half git enough of each other.” Edith looked as if she would’ve slung her arm around Freddie’s shoulders, if she could have, but she contented herself with leaning in confidentially as Ephram shifted back and said in a loud aside to Freddie, “These long-legged boys sure do got a way about em, don’t they? Emory was stringbean skinny and loose-hinged jes like this ‘un.” 

“They do,” Freddie agreed, casting another fond look up at Ephram - though his expression darkened, mirroring the tone of Edith’s voice when she drew back and added, “…Ephram’s daddy, too. Although that ‘un, humph. Too loose in too many directions, him.”

“That’s a very diplomatic way to say he’s an arsehole,” the fairy said, shooting a wry smile in Edith’s direction just as Ephram gathered him up again; beginning to explain the circumstances of his father’s visit: “Freddie’s had the pleasure of meeting Daddy, Granmaw,” Ephram said, returning to hugging Freddie and stretching up slightly to rest his chin on Freddie’s head, underlining their rather broad difference in height. His eyes were sparkling with the same mischief as his husband’s, the mirth bubbling through his voice, when he reported, “…Freddie just about ran’im outta town and then made love to me right ‘gainst the kitchen counter.”

Chuckling at the memory, Freddie met Edith’s eyes. “I wasn’t going to have my husband feeling out of sorts and awkward in his own home,” he said, “Harlan simply had to go - as quickly as he could be encouraged out the door again.”

Edith hooted, throwing her hands up in delight before pointing an oval-shaped, shiny nail at Freddie. “I knew it!” she crowed. “I knew you wouldn’t be some namby-pamby lazybones, and Lord, child – I’m glad for it.” For the first time, Edith acknowledged Thorne’s presence, fixing an acid, needle glare on the other ghost. “A brave, strong match for my lil duckling. And obviously quick enough to git the number of Harlan Pettaline right away and pack him off with piss in his ear.”

She let her gaze rest on Ephram for a moment, then said deliberately to Freddie, “I don’t rightly know what sorter home life you had, darlin’ baby boy, but if I was to hazard…” she squinted one eye at Freddie, the same way Ephram did when he was sifting through the facts at hand and piecing together a hypothesis. “There was at least one good woman who had a hand in raising you." 

Edith’s delighted laughter at this news of Harlan's ignominious exit - her generous and deep-dyed approval - was so warm and wonderful that Freddie wanted to wrap himself up in it like a woolly jumper, or a soft blanket; though his stomach twisted for a moment when he noticed her narrowed glare at Thorne, not wanting in any way to invite his former… lover? abuser? … back into the conversation. But it was what she went _on_ to say about Freddie’s childhood that really had him at a loss for words.

“I…” the fairy started softly, the similarities between grandmother and grandson never more evident than at that moment - but he was cut off by Thorne who brayed out a laugh, sharing his thoughts with the room at large. “Pfft. Watts never had anything of the sort - did you, Watts? _Everyone_ knew it. His mum had fucked off somewhere, and his father…” Thorne smirked. “Well, his father just didn’t give a monkey’s.”

Refusing to engage the old man any further, Freddie just offered a wincing sort of smile to Edith. “He’s not wrong,” he murmured, almost apologetically, “But I did have a nanny for a while, whom I loved.” His smile turned a bit wistful. “And she always made me feel as though she loved me too. Until she was gone.” Freddie looked over at Edith, glad down to his bones that Ephram had had her to love him, in the midst of the varying and ongoing neglect his darling had suffered in other areas. Edith smiled. "And I hope she loved you jes as you are, as you was, girlish or boyish or jes sweet lil child, whichever way you conducted yourself.” She ran her hand above Freddie’s shoulder again. “The way I tried to love Ephram when he was a tadpole and let ‘im know he was a blessing and a joy exactly as he was. Even when his momma and his daddy got in a twist about him maybe bein’ a queer.”

Ephram made a little strangled noise, something between a bird peep and a startled huff, and his chin slipped from Freddie’s head, prompting Freddie to rub his husband’s back soothingly as his witch began to balk at what his great-grandmother was saying, clearly not wanting any part of it. Edith had begun, though, so she kept scything her way through: “Whatever fool things Harlan had to say to you boys, jes you know that the reason he’s so good at lyin’ to every damn person he meets is because he started out lyin’ to his own self.” Ephram shook his head, taking a step back with panic starting to rise in his eyes.

“I don’t–” he started, but then just left them both and went to stand at the kitchen sink, running the cold tap full force for a few minutes before getting a glass down from the cupboard. Edith watched him, but she spoke to Freddie in the same determined pace. “Odell was with Harlan in football together, them boys. And Odell ain’t the sort to talk bout nobody’s business behind their back, but when Harlan tole Lulie it was her fault, that she’d tried to make Ephram into a lil girl and turned his only son into a _fag_ –” Edith growled the word, her hand a claw at her side, “Odell din’t see no reason to keep it to himself what he knew bout Harlan Pettaline and one’a them other gridiron stars, one from out of town, both of em liquored up full enough to not recall a single moment come mornin’ and sober.”

What Edith had to tell them was so unexpected, so bloody _shocking_ really, that once Ephram had pulled away from him to distract himself at the sink, Freddie very nearly felt his jaw drop. 

“My god,” he murmured, looking to Ephram and closing the distance between them again; not touching his husband, but keeping close in case a bit of physical contact was needed, “What did Lulie say?”

News spilled, Edith folded her hands comfortably against her abdomen, just under her breasts. She swayed slightly as if caught in a faint current of air, but after a few moments it became obvious that the ghost was mimicking the movement of a rocking chair as she picked up her relaying of family secrets again.

“Lulie put Odell out her house and hardly talked to him again for so long as I was alive, at least.” She nodded in Ephram’s direction as the witch drank his second glass of water, still not quite able to return to the fold of their conversation. “She’s … I love my granddaughter, don’t take me wrong, baby bird, but she ain’t a woman given to the idea that a person can be a bunch of ways at once, all mixed up and woven together. She was a breathtaking girl, popular and well-loved and everthang a pretty girl was supposed to be; ‘at’s why it hit her so damn hard when Harlan left. She only wanted her whole life to find a man, git married, have a baby or two, make a beautiful home for her family – nothin’ much more’n that. Not too much to ask, right? For some women.” 

Edith gave Freddie a piercing look for a moment, although what her thoughts were behind it remained oblique. Then she continued, “Harlan leavin’ was like tellin’ Lulie she was a failure at bein’ a woman. Exactly that: at bein’ a woman.” Edith sighed, a sound that carried the weight of having sighed over this exact situation a score of times before. “When you place all your worth into one definition of what a woman is, or a man is, the minute it gits upset it’s bound to gaum a person up somethang terrible. Their whole life map is wiped out, their whole guide of what they’s supposed to do and who they’s supposed to be. Lulie’s a sweet girl, but she never moved beyond bein’ a sweet girl. She ain’t equipped to handle somethang as rare and beautiful as the child she was blessed with, and she sure wasn’t able to handle anythang other’n pure bull stud manliness from her husband.”

Ephram ventured back over at this point, pushing up against Freddie and clasping his husband’s hand in his own, damp from droplets of water that escaped the glass. “I’m taking Freddie to Apple Fall, Granmaw,” Ephram said, his voice getting steadier on each word. “Reckon it’s … it’s good to go prepared. Even if knowin’ is all I’m prepared to do.” He looked at Freddie, a little unsurely.

Thorne, whose best efforts to antagonise, and to control his current situation, had gone unrewarded, went quiet again - though now he drifted closer, curious to hear what Edith had to say, and not wanting to miss any of it. He’d always liked a bit of kitchen sink drama when he’d been alive, and in death, he found, he clearly hadn’t lost the taste for it.

Freddie, though, paid him no attention at all, consumed as he was by the story of Harlan Pettaline’s youthful indiscretions. And Ephram did the same, staying by the sink and drinking water as though he’d just crawled through the desert - despite the fact that Freddie could tell by the set of his shoulders and the subtle cock of his head that he hadn’t missed a word.

So Edith went on; speaking about her grandchildren - Lulie, who’d crumbled under the weight of her own expectations, and Odell, who’d all but lost his sister by telling her the truth - and Freddie couldn’t help but sigh, more familiar with Lulie’s sort of woman (he and Ephram both) than Edith knew.

At that point though, Ephram felt brave enough to rejoin them, keeping close to Freddie and taking the fairy’s hand in his own as he told his great-grandmother about their upcoming plan to spend some time in Kentucky, no longer sounding quite as shaken by what he’d heard about his father as he had when the words had first passed Edith’s lips - but clearly still at sea with it; struggling with what it _meant_ to know, and how he was meant to proceed. And Freddie squeezed his darling’s hand supportively, hoping to convey, with the look in his eyes, that _whatever_ Ephram was prepared - or unprepared - to do, that was exactly the right thing _to do_. That how he felt was the right way to feel - whatever that happened to be.

Raising Ephram’s hand to his lips, Freddie kissed the cool damp skin of his knuckles, then looked back to Edith questioningly. “Does Harlan know?” he asked quietly, “About any of it? What Odell saw… what he told Lulie? Or has it all just…” The fairy waved his free hand in a helpless sort of gesture, “I mean, has it ever been talked about again?”

“Harlan can lie so convincing he could swear he was asleep while he’s standin’ right there talkin’ to you.” Edith pursed her lips, and if she’d been in her own rocking chair on her own porch it would have been followed by her spitting. As it was, she simply sucked her teeth and continued, “…Odell don’t reckon he was seen, and neither him nor Lulie would of mentioned it to Harlan. That man likely put the whole affair straight out his head once it was done.” Edith added laconically, “‘Sides, I heard that out-of-town big football star died a two years later, joyridin’ drunk as a polecat with a lil ol’ country girl he was courtin’ out near Tug Fork.”

Ephram shuddered. “Granmaw–” he started, agitated, but Edith shook her head.

“No, duckling,” she said soothingly. “Yore daddy’s plenty rotten in a peck of ways, but a cold-blooded killer he ain’t. Nor a scheming killer, neither. He’s purely the possessor of the devil’s own luck – situations turn out for ‘im, more often than not.”

A sigh of relief left Ephram’s chest and he turned his head to press the point of his nose against Freddie’s cheek, thankful that there wasn’t anything more to learn about his father that would make him lose his footing. 

Edith watched, rocking placidly away despite her dark sharp eyes missing nothing, and then said to Freddie, “I’m glad you’re goin’ up round the Fall, baby bird. Might throw you some–” she smiled, amusement curling a corner of her wide mouth, “–but I reckon you, pretty child, don’t jes land on your feet but head right on into a three-quarter-time waltz without hardly takin’ a breath in between.” The ghost stood, although her feet didn’t touch the ground, and soundlessly moved closer to Freddie.

“I only wish I could of knowed you when I was alive,” Edith said, the first signs of wistful sorrow in her demeanour since she’d appeared. “Both of you boys as grown men, of course, but at least I had years with my grandbaby here. Would of been some sorter wonderful to have known you too, Freddie, honey. I’m grateful as all hell I got the chance now, even under whatever these twitterpated circumstances are. You’ll remember, won’t you, that ol’ Granmaw Edith took to you right away?” She passed her hand over Freddie’s forehead, the faintest of riffles touching his hair and leaving that slight chill behind. “I want you to hold a memory of me, sweetheart, and I’ll do the same with you.”

As Edith spoke about Harlan, Freddie was struck again by the common ground that he and his father-in-law both tread - Freddie being in possession of the same sort of luck that Harlan had been born with; the same sort of easy charm and even easier morality - though the fairy hoped they parted company significantly enough that Edith would never regard _him_ as rotten in any way. Because somehow, despite having only just met her, the idea of disappointing Edith Crabtree felt a bit too terrible to bear.

Leaning into the gentle press of Ephram’s nose at his cheek, Freddie gave his husband’s hand another little squeeze, then smiled when Edith addressed him again, pleased to have been given an avian endearment of his own - and even _more_ pleased that his own silver-tongued advantage seemed to inspire the older woman’s indulgent approval rather than a sighing shake of her head. “I do my best,” he said with a little grin as the ghost floated closer - though his smile dimmed as her own turned a touch more melancholy.

“I’d have liked that,” he said softly, meeting her eyes, “More than I can say.” And he would have, he knew. He’d have loved it. To have had someone like Edith care for him; to have had Ephram to love and be loved by… _then_? 

That would have reordered the world. It would have been a revelation.

“I’m glad I’ve met you now though,” Freddie told her, his voice soft and sincere, “Because I’ve imagined you over and over again; built you up in my head… and still, none of those imaginings came even remotely close.” 

Th fairy smiled again, his chest feeling tight as Edith asked him to remember her, and to remember her affection for him, and he nodded, murmuring, “I’ll remember. I couldn’t ever forget.” 

The breeze of her touch was cool, but Freddie welcomed it all the same, wishing for more; wanting very badly to hug her, and knowing it was impossible. “I promise I’ll remember you, Gran,” he said again, “Just like this.”


End file.
